


Shattered Memories

by thatstarlitsky



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: ATEEZ Storyline Challenge, Allusions to death, Gen, Mentions of Death, Time Travel, allusions to blood, ambiguous ending, hourglass - Freeform, things are not okie dokie but they could be, time loops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25149445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatstarlitsky/pseuds/thatstarlitsky
Summary: The golden sand in the hourglass ticked away the time that remained, and Hongjoong was helpless to stop it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Shattered Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the ATEEZ Storyline Challenge. I'm re-posting it here because people aren't able to see it because of the region lock on the website. I don't expect it to win, which is why I'm opting to share it here now rather than wait until the contest is over.
> 
> Important disclaimer (just in case someone reports this fic, or it will otherwise be flagged)  
> Yes, I posted it on the website under the nickname Morganini. Yes, I have logged-in screenshots to prove it's my nickname. I've got the google doc and a microsoft word file of it. (the ms word doc was last saved a day before the upload on the ateez website; and I can also prove when the file was created, which was 2 days before the upload date on the ateez website)
> 
> If there are any conflicts and AO3 wants to take it down because it's a re-post, then I'll do it, but I would prefer to keep it here. I just want to share it where everyone can see it.

The sky had fallen.

The stars twinkled like shattered glass from a ruined chandelier. They crunched beneath the boot of the unknown man – the man who watched them die. The lack of expression the mask displayed only made his amusement more palpable.

Hongjoong had finally met his match. The moon was turning red beneath him, eclipsed crimson without the light of the sun. Despite his efforts to pull himself upright, all he could manage was an awkward slump against something that might’ve been a wall, but was now nothing more than a crumbling plaster void. On the other side, nothing. The sun would not shine here.

“I must congratulate you,” the man in white said. He pulled out one of the few chairs that lay upright on the starry floor towards him. “You have accomplished what you meant to achieve. Your journey is over. You have found what you were searching for.”

The man lifted something in his hands. An hourglass gleamed silver and gold as he swirled it like a glass of fine wine. It clinked softly as it was set down on the table.

“But the price you have paid...”

“Stop it,” Hongjoong gasped. The words tore his chest in two. He clutched a hand against his chest as he choked. A few feet away, his coughs were echoed by the Other. A man who looked just like him. His face, once covered, was now visible as he stared helplessly up at the empty sky. He laid in the remnants of the fallen stars – of the broken chandelier that had tumbled in the skirmish and turned the world upside down.

The man in white peered at the hourglass as the time slowly ticked away. Hongjoong watched the silver sand fall with horrified fascination. Blurry faces could be seen in the bottom. Little by little, they would be buried and forgotten. Mere blips on the timeline of the universe. Hongjoong could scarcely remember their names now, but the memory of their smiling faces was as fresh as a sunrise. Little by little, that would be forgotten too.

The Other drew a ragged breath, and Hongjoong felt it shudder through his own body. The dizziness returned, and for a moment, he became transparent. The masked man’s face was hidden, but Hongjoong knew he was smiling.

“Not much longer now,” he said.

It had seemed so simple. The compass would guide their way. The needle would spin and spin and spin until it settled on a destination. They would travel to it, sailing over the ocean, through the clouds... In hindsight, their destinations had meant little. There was rarely anything of tangible value to bring home. Everything had been looted by travellers just like them, seeking the one and only Treasure. Yet, every night when they lit the fires, they were happy. They laughed, and drank to the journey. They sang and danced and swam in the ocean, high on the euphoria of the empty corners of the world they had filled in. In many ways, Hongjoong knew he’d already found his treasure – right here, with his friends; his family. He wanted to hold it tight and never let it go. But they hadn’t found their treasure yet, and until then, they would go on.

But something more intersected their journey.

They called them the Others, not because they were something else, but because they were who they were. They were something strange – something they couldn’t understand. Something so otherworldly and unusual that it was the only name they could think of. The Others looked like them. Talked like them. Walked like them. But there was a cold twist. Hongjoong saw it in the tilt of a head, and in the slightest movement of a finger.

Something had corrupted the Others. Something had twisted their hearts into something not quite human – not quite of this world. Hongjoong didn’t know if he should call them demons. They were too human for that. There didn’t seem to be an appropriate, all-encompassing word for them.

And so, they became the Others.

The Others appeared where they went. Sometimes, they were seen from afar. Distant shadows in the sand that never looked their way. An eerie ripple on the horizon, silhouetted by the setting sun. Sometimes, they were nothing more than the distant peal of a trumpet in the night. But other times, they were face to face. Their eyes gleamed from within the shadows of black fedoras. They mirrored and echoed their every move. As they struggled to find answers, they too were searching for their own. Hongjoong had never been certain of their intentions, or even of whether or not they were good or evil.

His answers came far too late. He hadn’t realized that killing the Others meant that they would be killing themselves. Not until it was too late, when all of them were snatched from his fingers. Taken before their time. Taken by time itself. Destroyed, completely and utterly. Forgotten, as the last second that passed into the next. And it was all his fault.

The sand in the hourglass shifted. Suddenly, Hongjoong couldn’t remember the colour of their eyes. Their faces were fading into oblivion. The echoes of their laughter became tainted by the scratching of a damaged record. Soon, Hongjoong would be joining them as the sand poured the seconds away.

The masked man watched without expression. Beneath the golden links of the crystal chandelier, his Other reached for the hourglass with a red stained hand. His lips moved soundlessly beneath the black mask. His voice had been silenced. He was fading from this world. He didn’t belong here, and neither did Hongjoong. His heartbeat was a ticking doomsday clock, counting down until midnight. The sand in the hourglass swirled. The bulb at the top was almost empty.

He needed more time.

Hongjoong gripped a hole in the dark plaster behind him. It bit into his palms as he pulled himself to his feet. The masked man didn’t try to stop him, but Hongjoong could feel his unseen eyes burning into him. The Other on the floor continued to speak. Hongjoong tried to listen, but heard only static, and the steady tick of a clock.

His legs were heavy as he staggered towards the table. The Other watched with desperate eyes. Hongjoong knew, without a doubt, that in that moment, their minds were one. They had both lost the people most dear to them, and they both knew where they were. The hourglass ticked away fragile seconds that remained before they would be lost forever. Time seemed to go too fast, yet not fast enough for Hongjoong to get there in time.

The hourglass was warm when he wrapped his hands around it. The silver gleam of sand tempted him. The undulating images of those he had forgotten lied trapped within. For a moment, he felt the pain of lost memories. Memories of a man left behind by the woman he loved. Of a brother leaving home as life moved forward while the other stayed behind, too young to follow. Of stars he couldn’t find when all was lost. Of leaping from a car paused at a stoplight to seek an unattained freedom. Of dreams discarded like trash in an alleyway. Of leaving a worn trail to follow beloved friends into a maelstrom. Of being left behind, unable to reach out to those he lost.

The hourglass trembled in Hongjoong’s hands.

“It’s useless,” the masked man said. “Time will not stop – not even for you. You cannot unmake what has already been made. You have tried it once before. The consequences will be dire.”

Hongjoong looked towards the Other. Their eyes met, and he remembered. He remembered a time when the last grains of sand were ticking down to zero, just as they were now. He remembered turning the hourglass over in his hands and restarting the flow. He found himself back at the beginning – back with a compass clutched in his hands. It was his memory.

And Hongjoong knew. The Others were not Others. They were echoes from a time that intersected their own. They had restarted the clock, and trapped themselves in an eternal cycle that would only end the same way – right here, facing down the results of their transgressions. Torn from this world by the passage of time. Forgotten, as long as time would flow unstoppably down a volatile, unchanging river. Someday, Hongjoong would find himself back in this very spot, facing down his Other, but this time, there would also be the ones who would come after. His future was set in stone. He would be a prisoner of the past, and bound to a future he was destined to face.

He held the hourglass in his hand, and turned to face the masked man. The jewels gleamed in the moonlight.

“Then, I will set us free,” he said.

And Hongjoong brought the hourglass down onto the edge of the table. The glass shattered, and like a typhoon trapped within a bottle, the sand exploded in a whirlwind of dust. The pieces fell to the floor as what remained of the memories stolen by time drifted to the floor like snowflakes from a silent storm. The memories refracted an image of a young man smiling eagerly as he removed an old compass from a box found in the attic of an old house.

“What is it?” A voice asked.

“It’s a compass,” the young man said. “But it doesn’t point north.”

“There’s something written on the bottom, let me see,” another man said.

The young man handed the compass over, and the new voice read out loud.

“People want it,” he recited. “People dream about it. It can be different to every individual. It can complete us, or it can destroy us, and it can change the world. People call it Treasure...”


End file.
